Thursday night analysis: West Brook at Houston Lamar

Week two (officially the third week of regular season games) promises to bring Southeast Texas some treats for games.

West Brook will travel to take on defending 5A-DI state championship runner-up Houston Lamar at 7 p.m. from Delmar Stadium.

Both teams are 2-0 and have looked good so far. Houston Lamar has beaten two 5A schools (Fort Bend Elkins and Klein Forest) while West Brook took the Beaumont Bowl back into its possession by beating Ozen and Central. It’s hard to actually tell who has looked better this season, but wins are wins no matter how you look at them.

For the West Brook offense, there’s not much secretive surrounding them. They will look to run the ball early and often. The Redskins have given up an average of 93.5 rushing yards in its first two games, while West Brook has averaged 280.5 yards rushing yards per game. Something has to give.

I would look for Houston Lamar to load the box with eight or nine and dare West Brook to keep running the ball or go to the air with quarterback Isaac Aubrey. The threat of a deep play is there, as we saw when Aubrey hit Charles Ward for a 60 yard touchdown last week against Central. But the offense can’t start as slow as last week or else Houston Lamar will run out to an early lead and force West Brook to the air.

Defensively, West Brook will have to deal with Redskins quarterback Darrell Colbert, who can hurt you with his arm or his feet. The Bruins have had varying degrees of success against dual-threat quarterbacks so far this season, letting Ozen’s Javaris Curl run free a little bit but holding Central’s Michael Jacquet in check for most of the game.

West Brook lost to Houston Lamar last season 26-14. The Redskins limited Hervey to 27 yards on 15 carries. That can’t happen this year. Neither can letting Houston Lamar run for 296 yards. But if all that happened and West Brook was within two scores, this game has the potential to be much closer.